Chapter 39 : Chapter 39
Chapter 39. Boy, Raise Your Sword (2)
"I feel sorry for you, thinking it might be too unreasonable a request."
"Not at all. Count. I am only grateful that you do not think of old me as useless and give me a grave duty."
Hansen spoke with a trembling voice, fiddling with the scroll he received from Bartomyu.
A neat greyish-white office.
There, two white-haired old men were conversing.
"I will absolutely never forget your achievements and loyalty shown in the Tolome Knights all this time."
"I only followed Lord Bartomyu who shines brightly."
"……I will definitely take responsibility for your sons and family on the name of Tolome. More definitely for as much as you cannot do."
Bartomyu looked at the white-haired knight standing before him.
Knight Hansen.
Turning fifty-three this year, he was one who swore loyalty as his knight since the early days of Bartomyu's activity.
When people spoke of Bartomyu's knights, most would think of Edwin, the Knight of Godspeed, but they could gain their current fame because there were people silently supporting them from below.
A knight who didn't shine brilliantly but always did his best silently in his position.
An old knight who didn't succumb to his lack of talent and did his best to maintain his capacity as a knight even over the age of fifty.
That old knight was giving his final bow toward the man who was his liege with one arm in bandages.
"The glorious time I spent with the Count. I will never forget it."
Hansen raised his head and met eyes with Bartomyu.
"Knight Hansen. I will definitely complete the final mission the Count gave me."
After finishing his greeting, Hansen immediately turned his feet and left Bartomyu's office.
Although they were comrades who spent decades together, the parting was clean.
That was how men's partings were.
However, Bartomyu couldn't take his eyes off the door Hansen left through for a long time.
***
He had broken a porcelain vase.
That porcelain vase was one cherished by the legal wife of Calic Diez, his father and the Lord of Lombard.
He hadn't broken it. To be precise, Simon's half-brothers broke it and pinned it on him.
Young Simon didn't know this matter would escalate so much.
"I am sorry! Madam! The young one did it unknowingly, so please forgive him just once!"
Every time the sound of the leather whip rang loudly, his mother screamed. Simon felt the unpleasant vibration transmitted through the body embracing him every time the whip hit his mother.
"Aaargh!"
He saw the bright red blood bursting from his mother.
That was frightening.
Every time those bright red things left his mother's body, it felt like the only wall protecting him was collapsing.
Therefore, Simon cried out to the person he thought was his father to save his mother.
However, Calic Diez only sat there indifferently even though the son inheriting his blood was pleading.
Only then could Simon finally feel it.
What kind of position he held as a person.
"That dog-like dream again……."
Simon Diez woke up, sweeping back his forehead drenched in sweat.
Smelly men were lying next to him, and the sound of snoring was ceaseless.
"This is reality."
Simon laughed at his own plight.
It was a shabby inn. The innkeeper would cram more than ten guests into a room meant for three or four, taking advantage of the peak season called the Kingdom Tournament.
The weather of early summer getting gradually hotter, the smell emanating from strange men, and the poor environment.
Still, Simon Diez hadn't complained.
Because he thought the poor reality he was seeing now would be a momentary instance.
However, Simon Diez was still, even now, stuck in a shabby inn.
"Life is dog-like. Since it never smiles at me once."
Simon packed his things and came out of the inn.
Cruelly, today's sun without hope was rising over the golden statue regardless of Simon's will.
***
Blanc stopped by a magic tool shop operated by the Seal School with Tarania.
"The best way to prevent black magic is to spend money."
"I thought the Torch Knights would use a bit different method?"
"We do use other methods, but those are secret techniques applicable only within the knight order. If the Baron abandons everything of the mundane world and joins our knight order, I can teach you."
"That would be difficult."
Blanc, having been scolded severely by the Warlock Tiday, wanted to find a way to detect and repel Evil through Tarania.
To others, it might have looked like a solid appearance preparing for the future through failure and experience, but Blanc had a bigger reason than that.
It was because of Ciella Neudorf.
To uncover the nasty curse hiding in her body, he needed a method to detect Evil.
The Tiday incident served as a very good excuse. Since it wouldn't be strange at all for Blanc, who was scolded by black magic, to prepare against it.
"I hope you recommend a good magic tool."
"The better the magic tool, the more expensive it is. It would be better to trust your pocket than me."
Tarania deliberately treated Blanc with an impudent attitude and shook him.
Because she wanted to create ripples in his eyes through the disturbance of emotions.
Tarania, having seen something massive in Blanc's mental world, was doing her best to figure it out.
Therefore, she was touching on the face that nobles considered most important, but.
"Do not worry about the pocket. Count Bartomyu handed over quite a large amount."
The black-haired boy showed no agitation at all, as if he didn't care about such things.
'He's handsomer than necessary.'
Rather, Tarania, who was examining inside Blanc's eyes in detail, was falling deep into his eyes.
The moment the two with different purposes were about to enter the magic tool shop, the back of a familiar person came into Blanc's view.
'Billy?'
It was his butler, Billy.
Last evening, as soon as Blanc confirmed Simon Diez's existence, he instructed Billy to grasp his location and movements.
It was to find out if he was the Simon Diez he knew, and if so, where he was.
So he had ordered Billy to tail him.
Because it would be a disaster if he happened to leave outside Baltimere.
'Quite plausible.'
Although it was the first tailing mission for the butler candidate Billy, he was moving quite plausibly even in Blanc's eyes.
'That person is Simon Diez…….'
The brown curly-haired man hanging at the end of Billy's gaze.
A man walking looking at the ground rather than ahead with drooping shoulders.
Although Blanc felt familiarity in Simon Diez's face, it was hard to be certain if he was the one leading the Void in the past life.
Because back then, his eyeballs had melted down, spewing only pitch-black Void from those holes.
It was the first time looking at Simon Diez's face under such bright sunlight.
"Sir Tarania, I am sorry."
"What is the matter?"
Blanc moved his body hurriedly as soon as he confirmed Simon Diez.
"Please go to the magic tool shop and choose beforehand. Something suddenly came up for me."
Blanc left suddenly without looking back as soon as he finished speaking.
Watching such Blanc, Tarania only had her single remaining eye wide open.
***
Simon Diez stood in front of a building.
It was a labor office.
Baltimere was the largest and most complex city in the Felix Kingdom. Therefore, it was a place where miscellaneous daily laborers were constantly needed.
However, Simon standing in front of the labor office was a knight.
Although he was knighted as a humble knight whose name wasn't even known.
'If possible, I wanted to sell my sword…….'
Simon wanted to sell his skills. As a knight, that was a natural thought.
However, currently, Baltimere was in a situation where knights and squires flocked more than ever.
Jobs requiring swords were limited, and people seeking them were overflowing.
Since he had not a single acquaintance in Baltimere, he couldn't break in through connections, and since he was Simon, a preliminary dropout who didn't leave a strong impression through the tournament, no one bothered to hire him.
'I have to go down to my hometown, so I have no choice.'
Simon was able to come up here to Baltimere thanks to the help of his mother, who had worked as a maid.
His mother's pocket money offered with fingertips cracked from rough labor.
Without that money, he wouldn't have dared to start the journey that took a long two months.
'Mother…….'
How much had he cried clutching that money she must have saved only for him?
It was a road he came up vowing to definitely make a name in the Kingdom Tournament, but his current appearance was shabbier and hungrier than a rat in a gutter.
However, he couldn't just sit down and suck his thumb here.
Simon bowed his knight's pride for a moment and tried to enter the labor office.
However, as always, life was harsh to Simon Diez.
"Simon Diez! What are you doing here?"
"Your appearance looks just like a dog in the rain!"
In this situation, he ended up encountering the people he wanted to encounter least.
"……Have you been well? Brothers."
They were children of the Diez family.
Blessed ones born from the womb of the legal wife, unlike himself, a bastard.
"Hmph! You were so arrogant in Lombard, what is this appearance now?"
The first and second sons smirked and stabbed mercilessly at Simon's sore spot as if this was their chance.
'If not for you!'
Simon Diez's first opponent in the preliminaries was the first son of the Diez family in front of him.
He knew well. Simon Diez's weakness.
"To still be afraid of blood despite becoming a knight, what noble would accept you?"
Simon Diez feared blood.
In his childhood, the blood bursting from his mother's back was deeply settled in Simon Diez's mind.
His mother's face turning pale every time blood drained out came as a great fear to young Simon.
The first son of the Diez family knew such weakness of Simon well.
That he always backed away in practice resembling real battles where blood splattered, despite showing his skills unreservedly in usual practice duels.
Therefore, as soon as he met Simon, he deliberately got scratched by Simon's sword to create blood.
And skillfully thrust it in front of Simon.
Perhaps the spectators watching the match just thought Simon froze unable to overcome tension and pressure.
Against Simon who froze like that, the first son of the Diez family could take an easy victory, and continuing that momentum, he could barely pass to the main tournament.
"……."
Simon, who failed to overcome the fear of blood despite possessing outstanding talent.
Because he eventually failed to overcome his limits, he ended up in a shabby appearance like now.
"I mean, we shouldn't have accepted a guy born from a lowly womb into the family!"
"Where would the blood of a lowly bitch go!"
"……!"
Hearing words insulting his mother, Simon clenched both fists tight.
He could endure insults against himself as much as they wanted.
Simon had lived suffering such humiliation all his life. They were insults he could accept naturally like breathing.
But enduring insults against his mother was truly hard.
Until now, he had endured well with the feeling of swallowing blood, but.
However, today was not it.
It was hard to breathe.
Their insults, which he would have passed over lightly usually, couldn't flow over and stuck deep in his chest, disturbing Simon's breathing.
It felt as if the words they spat stabbed his heart and the blood flowing down from that pooled in his lungs.
Simon felt instinctively.
That for him to breathe.
He had to draw his sword right now.